Short Fiction
selected publications and award-winning short fiction by Jo Gatford
FLASH FICTION
Something Serpentile | Hypoarousal | I Talk to God at the Planetarium - Gone Lawn, 2024
The Dog Sees the Bird - HAD, 2024
Three Miles Off the Highway Past Exit 509 - 2nd prize, Blue Frog Prize, 2024
My son plays Minecraft and talks at me for forty minutes straight while I try to write something profound - 3rd prize, Oxford Flash Fiction Prize, 2023
If You Look at it Aslant, Maybe it Won’t Blind You - shortlisted for the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize, 2023
I’m Just a Guy, Standing in Front of a Celestial Body, Asking Her to Crush Him with Her Gravitational Pull - What’s The Theme Zine, March, 2023
Nice Little Girls - Cease, Cows, February 2023
I Try Wishing For More WIshes and the Djinn’s Like Come on Dude - longlisted for the The Bath Flash Award, published in the Dandelion Years anthology, January 2023
3,000 Dead Satellites - Flash Frog, November 2022
Every Seventh Wave - longlisted for the Forge Flash Competition, 2021, longlisted for The Oxford Prize, and published in the May Break Your Bones anthology, November 2022
Seasoning - Stylist Short Stories, July 2022
My Brother the Skyscraper - 1st Prize, The Molotov Cocktail Flash City Competition, September 2022
The Mothers - 2nd Prize, Bath Flash Fiction Award, October 2021
A Statement from His Wife - Pithead Chapel, October 2021
Half a Glass - trampset, July 2021
Next of Kin - SmokeLong Quarterly, March 2021
That’s My Boy - X-R-A-Y, November 2020
The Execution of Emperor Maximilian by Édouard Manet, 1867-68 - The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, August 2020
The Fall of the Bibleman - longlisted for the Reflex Fiction flash fiction competition, Spring 2020 / Beguiled by a Wild Thing, 2021
Advice to my Child - Liars’ League Young & Old, April 2020
Blood Flows Slower Than Water - 1st Prize, Flash 500 third quarter flash competition 2019 / BIFFY50 Awards 2019-2020
The Back of Your Hand - longlisted for the Reflex Fiction flash fiction competition, November 2018
Second Skin - highly commended, TSS Flash Fiction 400 competition, November 2018
Things Left and Found at the Side of the Road - 1st Prize, Bath Flash Fiction Award, February 2018, also published in the BFF anthology and the Best Microfictions 2019 anthology
Third's the Charm - longlisted for the Reflex Fiction flash fiction competition, August 2017
Take off Your Shoes & If, Then - The Open Pen Anthology, March 2016
Caution from the Wind - shortlisted for The Molotov Cocktail Flash Monster Competition, September 2014
Blink and Smile - FlashFlood (National Flash Fiction Day), June 2014
Bing Bong - 1st Prize, The Fiction Desk 2014 flash fiction competition, published in There Once Was a Place anthology, June 2014
Jingle, Sweat, Bleed - PiF Magazine, November 2013
If, Then - Open Pen, April 2013
Sally Wore Two Petticoats - Pure Slush, March 2013 & National Flash Fiction Day FlashFlood 2020
Lacrimosa - SmokeLong Quarterly, March 2012
Stamp a Little Thankfulness - Everyday Genius, April 2011
Born in a Barn - The Pygmy Giant, March 2011
Somewhere in the Middle - Underground Voices, December 2010
MICROFICTION
Motion to Present the Defendent’s Pinterest Boards as Evidence - New Flash Fiction Review, Feburary, 2023
On Day Six of Bible Camp We Crawl Into a One Man Tent - The Games Room at Full House Lit, November 2022
Hamelin / Into the Woods / Monozygotic - The Woolf, November 2022
Through Uneven Teeth - Nanoism, March 2011
Innocuous - Metazen, February 2011
A Chicken Walks into a Bar - Short, Fast and Deadly, February 2011
SHORT FICTION
Inside Voices - shortlisted for The Bridport Prize & The Short Fiction/University of Essex Prize 2020, and forthcoming at The Fiction Desk 2023
Yellow Rock - New Ghost Stories IV, The Fiction Desk, April 2023
Flying Ant Day - The Forge, August 2022
Now Look What You Did - Rattle Tales Anthology 3, April 2015
Someone Else - finalist, Aesthetica Creative Works Annual 2014
Vitamaxima - Vector Press Issue 3, July 2014 (out of print)
The Giantess’ Daughter - Sundog Magazine, February 2014
In the Duck Light - PANK London Calling Issue, July 2011
Dead Leg - Litro, March 2011
A Lack of Grace - finalist, Aesthetica Creative Works Annual 2011
Your Last Cigarette - one of ten winning stories published in the Guardian anthology The Perfect Journey? Short Stories for Short Journeys 2000
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
And The Rain Came Tumbling Down (novel excerpt) - longlisted for the Stockholm Festival First Pages Prize, 2019
Things in the Dead Space - shortlisted for The Fiction Desk Ghost Story Competition, 2015
And There - shortlisted for the Bare Fiction Flash Fiction Prize, 2014